1Thursday, July 25, 13

Greeting, Introduce ourselves and our names. “We make a visual programming language to teach kids to code”

2Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: anecdote about lego mindstorms vs pink purses. “We knew we had to build a toy that could appeal to girls too”

2Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: anecdote about lego mindstorms vs pink purses. “We knew we had to build a toy that could appeal to girls too”

2Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: anecdote about lego mindstorms vs pink purses. “We knew we had to build a toy that could appeal to girls too”

3Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: Here’s what we’re going to talk about tonight.

What we do.

3Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: Here’s what we’re going to talk about tonight.

What we do.

How we got started.

3Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: Here’s what we’re going to talk about tonight.

What we do.

How we got started.

How it works.

3Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: Here’s what we’re going to talk about tonight.

Coding is the new literacy

4Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: - literacy used to be reading, now that’s enough.- everything is code, point out devices in the room that are controlled by software?- 10 years ago people thought they had to teach their kids spanish or mandarin, now it’s code.

An essential part of education.

5Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn:- Computer Science is making its way into the curriculum - UK + other counties have mandated Computer Science education for all school kids 1st grade onwards. - NYC is piloting mandatory computer science education for middle and high school students- President Obama pledged 3.1 billion to improving STEM education in the US. In his state of the union address he issued a call to better equip graduates for the high tech economy.

It’s a superpower.

6Thursday, July 25, 13

Sam: - when you know how to program you can create anything. - This app is just for me and my roommate to split our household bills. - I also made an app that enters all my friends in the online lottery to win tickets to shakespeare in the park - another app creates a gym schedule with only yoga classes in my neighborhood.

Next we’re gonna show you a video from Code.org

7Thursday, July 25, 13

So why don’t more people learn to code?

(scary hard code syntax)

8Thursday, July 25, 13

Sam: - coding is really scary and intimidating- get one little parenthesis wrong and your program won’t run- kids are really bad at typing

Hopscotch makes it easy for kids to code.

9Thursday, July 25, 13

Sam: - Our visual programming language eliminates the need for syntax. You can just drag and drop blocks of code.- You’ll never get scary error messages.

The building blocks of all programming languages.

10Thursday, July 25, 13

Sam: - There are thousands of programming languages with different syntaxes- But once you know the basic constructs of computer science you can use them in any language- Loops, variables, branching logic etc.

Targeting the right platform.

11Thursday, July 25, 13

Sam: - We built Hopscotch for tablet devices - Drag-and-drop is really tedious on the desktop but it’s fun on tablets- Kids love iPads, #1 most requested toy last Xmas- Growth is huge, 47% growth since 2012. Expected that 54% of online Americans will have a tablet by 2014.

The focus is on creating.

12Thursday, July 25, 13

Jocelyn: - I used to be a teacher and I found that project-based learning was really effective- Kids feel very empowered when they create something through code- Huge desire to show off what they made.

13Thursday, July 25, 13

Questions?

14Thursday, July 25, 13